Going Home
by piper78
Summary: Please find this story in its entirety at Ao3 (archiveofourown) Thanks! Username: Piper1016 After leaving her home, and the only home her two sons have known, of the last six years, Beth heads back to her parents farm. And who should be their new neighbor? Daryl Dixon, of course. AU-No zombies


**Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate, and for those that don't Happy Random Thursday.**

 **I wrote this one a while ago, so if it sounds familiar, that's probably why. Please read/share/comment! Thanks! I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Beth's knuckles blanched on the steering wheel as she drove out of the cul-de-sac that housed their home of the last five years. For the last time, she drove through the winding streets and peered at the perfectly manicured lawns and huge houses, one bigger than the next. And she wouldn't miss it. Not one bit. She wasn't sure how she managed to live there now that the end was in sight. The suburbs and city were fine for some. To Beth, though, it was stifling. Too many people vying for too small of an area. She would always be a country girl at heart.

Her son, four year old Zander, twisted as far around as his seatbelt allowed to look back at the house before it disappeared around the curve of the road, shadowed by another monstrosity of a neighboring house. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she put on the same brave face that she had plastered on for the last month.

Softly she spoke, "Come on, Zander, it's bad luck to look back. Think of all the good that is to come."

She bent an arm back, touching his knee. His strawberry blonde hair stuck out all over and his sleepy blue eyes, just like her own, were sad with uncertainty, gutting her breaking heart.

Once Zander was facing forward again, she couldn't help but steal her own peek at the house in the rearview mirror. A stately, if not impersonal, brick tudor in a suburb of Forest Hills, a town just south Nashville. Her husband, Zach had picked it out without her approval. She would have picked a less obvious house. Something small, with a yard bigger than a postage stamp. He had "surprised" her with it and while she was grateful for such a home to begin their life together in, it wasn't her style at all. It was way too big. Way too ostentatious. Though she had her sneaking suspicions then, now she knew it had been just for show. Zach wanted to impress those who didn't matter.

And then Zach died.

While piloting his single engine Cessna across the country to California, the plane had crashed. His body charred so badly there wasn't anything for them to bury. The plane had always made Beth nervous, fearing the very thing that had happened. He traveled for work and was gone often so he justified it by being quicker and easier than commercial airlines or driving. In reality, the Cessna did not make it possible for him to be home more, it just made it possible for him to be gone more conveniently. And now, she was a widow at the age of 26.

Jacob, age two, with matching strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes like his brother, had no clue what was going on. He just knew things were different. He picked up on the strain that Beth carried around her shoulders like a scarf, he picked up on her unsettledness. Sadly, he barely knew his father because Zach was gone so often. Zander was a little more familiar with his father, that wasn't saying much though. She told them their daddy was with Jesus now. Zander seemed to take comfort in that. Children tended to take things at face value with none of the doubt or questions that came with adulthood. She loved that about them. Kids were notoriously resilient, after all. Still, losing their father impacted them just the same. Now she was uprooting their lives and moving back to her hometown in King County, Georgia, further changing their lives.

Beth had moved to Nashville six years ago. Finding herself restless after two years of college, with two more to go. She began to feel stifled. Stuck. She needed a change of pace, needed to get away and out on her own. She commuted back and forth from school to home, never living on her own. So she thought she would give Nashville a try. She had her parents blessings, if not their reluctance, as she loaded up her hatchback that had once been Maggie's and passed onto her when she graduated high school. Her guitar in the passenger seat and a hundred bucks in her back pocket. Annette and Hershel, her parents, knew music had been her first love. Far be it from them to keep her from her dreams, knowing she would always regret it if she didn't at least try. They had raised a strong, smart, independent young woman and had given their daughter roots as well as wings.

Once in Nashville she wasted no time. She wrote music, playing for anyone that would give her a chance at any bar or coffee shop with an open mic night. When she wasn't signing or writing, she worked most nights at a high end bar. Once you've been to a bar you've been to them all. Sticky floors, and drunk people talking too loud. Still, the tips were good and occasionally on her break, her boss would let her sing.

Thinking back, Beth felt she no longer knew that girl. It was almost like remembering a character in a book she had read long ago, she felt so little connection to who she used to be. That young woman was a virtual stranger compared to the woman she had become. And if she were being completely honest, she didn't too much care for that woman.

Waitressing the night shift at the bar was how she met Zach. He had just graduated college and would come in at night to blow off steam with his friends, and more times than not, to get drunk. He was handsome, charismatic and made her feel important, seeming to only have eyes for her. It hadn't occurred to her at the time, but he never showed much interest in her music or her dreams of becoming a musician. They fell in love quickly. What she, in her young naivete, misconstrued as adoration was really just a bid for ownership. Zach was a collector. If he saw something he wanted, he'd go to just about any length to obtain it. Herself included.

She and Zach got married after only a few months of dating. Zander came ten months later and Jacob came a little less than two years after that . She quickly and gladly stuffed down her juvenile dreams of becoming the next top country music singer/songwriter and became a stay at home mom. A sacrifice she would make over and over again because it was the right thing to do. She never looked back, not much anyway. She was content singing to an audience of two fuzzy haired little boys. Zach was gone so much for work it was as though she was a single mom being the one solely responsible for the day in and day out care for the kids. It was a responsibility she loved and took seriously. She didn't have time to follow some silly childhood dream of being a musician.

They had no family in Tennessee. Zach was an only child and his parents died years ago before Beth and Zach even met. And Beth's family was in Georgia. She had only a couple friends, so after Zach died, it made sense she move back home to be near family. To be honest, she couldn't wait to get there. She missed her mother, father and sister immensely as well as the farm and house she grew up in.

Only seeing them once or twice or year didn't cut it. Zach didn't like their 'interference', as he called it. Beth didn't see it as interfering so much as just being an involved family. Wanting to keep the peace in her marriage as much as possible, not wanting to rock the boat, she allowed Zach's disconnect to come between herself and her family. Now, she could honestly say how unbelievably stupid that was on her part. As time had gone on, she saw her family less and less until she had grown estranged from her family; something she would always regret.

On the day she called to tell her parents of Zach's death, her mother said "Come home, baby girl." And that was all it took for her to decide that was, in fact, what she would do. What she wanted desperately to do.

Selling the house went surprisingly quickly, and most of their furniture went with it. None of it was her taste anyway, it was all way too sophisticated and light in color, not at all accommodating for children. And now, a month later, they were on their way. Her SUV loaded down with boxes and a U-haul trailer hooked up to the hitch, running with her tail between her legs back to mommy and daddy.

She wouldn't have it any other way.

A week or so ago, she and a friend, Jessie, were packing up her bedroom with a friend's help, Jessie, asked her, "But won't you miss the city? I mean, how will you live on a farm? No Costco, no Whole Foods. No mall. I mean I would shrivel up and die."

"Well, gee Jessie, I can't imagine what you think of the situation." Beth sassed.

She and Jessie had become friends through their sons playgroup when they were just toddlers and now they were in the same preschool class together. She was a good person, if not a little superficial. She had two children, a girl Jacob's age with perfect little pigtails and a boy Zander's age, Sam. She, the children, as well as her husband were always impeccably dressed. Her hair highlighted a bleached blonde, but not yellow, her waist skinny. Her pant legs always stayed tucked into her boots without that annoying bunching at the knees. She always had her ducks in a row, so to speak, lest anyone catch her with her Prada bag not matching her shoes.

"I'm sorry!" Jessie said, realizing the tactlessness of her words. "I'm just worried about you and the boys."

"We'll be just fine. I loved growing up on the farm. You and the kids will have to come visit." Beth said, unable to keep from adding, "The kids would love all the dirt and animals."

She did, however, resist to urge the laugh at the look of horror on her friends face.

"Yes, uh. That will be...fun."

When it came right down to it, Jessie was a good friend. She had helped Beth through the funeral arrangements and packing up the house. Jessie meant well, and Beth did get a good laugh at the look of shock on her face when she told her she was moving back home to live on a *gasp* farm. Beth hoped she wasn't too far gone, not too citified to easily revert back to the country girl she once was.

"Or you could just stay here," Jessie had suggested. "Sam will be devastated without his little partner in crime."

True enough. Sam and Zander loved each other in the fierce way only little boys could.

"We can't stay here. Even though I've lived here for a while now, it's not mine, ya' know what I mean? It's Zach's. His house, his money, his car. Everywhere I turn there is a memory," and not necessarily a good one. "It's time I go home, where I belong."

Or, so she hopped.

. . .

Forcing herself out of her daydream, she lifted her chin so she would be easily heard in the back where the boys sat in their carseats, "When Auntie Maggie and I were little, we would run wild in the woods and fields surrounding Grandma and Papa's house. It was so much fun. You two will love living there."

Beth detested the cul-de-sac where they had lived in Forest Hills. There wasn't much property for the boys to be able to run around and just be kids. Even if she let them outside by themselves to play in their tiny fenced in back yard, she received dirty looks from the other moms on the block. And forget riding a bike without a helmet.

She had fond memories on how she and Maggie would jump bareback on their horses, or quads, or bikes without a moment's hesitation or regard for safety. In the city the children had to practically have full body gear just to ride a tricycle or you were deemed an unfit parent. She took comfort in knowing the boys would receive a different childhood completely than they'd had up to this point living in the city. One where they would find a happy medium between full body gear and using a helmet while operating an ATV. They would be able to be free and wild, as children should be.

The boys perked up at the mention of their beloved Auntie Maggie. The feeling was mutual and she was just as anxious to get Beth and the boys home as her parents were. She had recently married Glenn, the lone pediatrician at the only clinic in town. Beth didn't know him well, but he seemed nice enough. She couldn't wait to grill him just to be sure he was as good as Maggie talked him up to be.

"You mean, we can go outside by ourselves?" Zander asked in astonishment.

"Sure can. Well after you learn the land. It's very easy to get lost out there." Her parents farmed a good chunk of land, it was easy to get turned around and disoriented if you were unaware of your surroundings.

"Auntie Maggie told me about the time you got lost in a corn field."

Beth inwardly cringed. That story would follow her around her whole life, she was sure of it.

"I wasn't lost, I just couldn't find my way home," Beth told the boys, as if that made it any less bad.

Thanks for that one, Aunt Maggie.

When Zander giggled and Jacob laughed, even if it was just to copy his big brother, for the first time in a month, well...in over a month if she were being honest, it was like music to her ears. She felt the slightest sensation of light-heartedness in her chest. Maybe they would be all right, after all.

After a moment and the giggles had died down, Zander spoke up again. "Mama, sing for us."

Beth loved to sing to them, her only audience these days, one that never grew tired of the sound of her voice.

"What would you like me to sing?"

Zander appeared to share her affinity for music, and was quite the four year old song aficionado.

"Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys," he decided.

Beth loved to play her parents records. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Charlie Daniels. A little Lynyrd Skynyrd for good measure. She lugged that old record player and those old records from her bedroom, to Nashville and, much to Zach's chagrin, into the house they had shared.

Beth cleared her throat and began signing.

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.  
Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks.  
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.  
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys  
They'll never stay home and they're always alone  
Even with someone they love."


End file.
